India piled fresh pressure on Research In Motion today when it gave the company less than three weeks to satisfy its concerns over its BlackBerry smartphones or face seeing some services banned.

Security fears over BlackBerry services in the country are thought to spring from the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack in which 116 people died. Officials suspect the culprits used encrypted services on the device.

The Indian government has set RIM a deadline of the end of August to give it access to data transmitted by BlackBerry’s email and messaging services. If the Canadian-based firm does not comply, Indian telecoms operators will be ordered to close the two services down.

“Our message to RIM and service providers is that if they don’t come up with a technical solution by 31 August, then the home ministry will take a view and will shut down BlackBerry Messenger and business enterprises services,” a spokesman for the ministry said.